History has a long and rich tradition of apocalyptic predictions—all of which were wrong—yet some people still think that this time around in 2012 is the real deal.
長久以來，歷史上流傳著各式各樣啟示錄預言的傳說－－沒有一個成真－－但還是有人相信，這次大概2012年就是世界末日。
Why 2012? Because of ancient Mayan calendars.
為什麼是2012年呢？這就要追溯至古代的馬雅曆法。
Obviously, Mayan calendars not only recorded the days and years, but also longer cycles of about five Millennia, so they could easily make calendars that went thousands of years into the future. But, of course, thousands of years in the future from thousands of years ago brings us to the current times when the Mayan calendars stop in 2012.
很顯然的，馬雅曆法不只是記載了日日年年，同時也記錄了以約五千年為單位，較長的周期，所以他們可以很輕易的估算出未來幾千年的曆法。但是，想當然爾，幾千年前的數千年以後，就把我們帶到了現代，而馬雅曆法的預測就停在2012年。
Modern new-agey people decided that the wise Mayans stopped making calendars because they knew when the world will end. And because the new-agers are happy (though scientifically illiterate people), their vision of 2012 was a great spiritual awakening or world reboot or other hippy-consciousness-expanding nonsense that the Mayans, who spend time pulling strings of thorns through people's tongues probably didn't have in mind.
現代推崇「新時代運動」的人們(註一)，是如此解讀的：睿智的馬雅人知道何時是世界末日，才停止估算曆法。而因為這些「新時代運動派」很高興(雖然他們沒什麼科學概念)，他們的2012末日説，是一個偉大的精神覺醒、世界重生或是其他嬉皮式的「意識超脫」之類的廢話，而馬雅人忙著用荊棘穿過人們的舌頭，大概從沒想過以上解讀方式。
To a normal person, the thought that "Calendar finished, therefore End of the World" is an odd conclusion to draw.
對正常人來說，「曆法終止，因此世界末日來臨」這種邏輯是個奇怪的結論。
After all, the amount of time in the Universe is infinite, and the amount of stone is limited. So, at some point, the Mayans had to stop carving calendars.
畢竟，宇宙的時間是無限的，但石頭的數量有限。所以，有朝一日，馬雅人必須停止刻曆法。
But never mind.
但沒關係。
What should have stayed a fringe belief turned into mass hysteria with the 2012 disaster movie that swept the Academy Awards and the numerous Emmy-nominated apocalypse documentaries on The History Channel.
這原本應該只是一個極端偏激的信念，隨著災難電影《2012》橫掃奧斯卡，加上《歷史頻道》多部獲艾美獎提名的天啟紀錄片渲染，轉變成為大眾恐慌。
What happened to you guys?
各位，你們到底在想什麼啊？
Anyway, after this, NASA became so inundated with questions that they had to take time away from their busy robot building, frontier pushing, knowledge expanding, civilization inspiring schedule, to write a webpage explaining that "No, a human-sacrificing, stone-aged society, with neither wheels to pull carts nor glass to make telescopes, didn't know more about science at the dawn of history than real scientists do today."
不論如何，此後，NASA被大量湧入的問題淹沒，還得從他們忙碌的打造機器人、開疆擴土、擴充新知及刺激文明發展的行程表中，抽空架網頁澄清：「不，一個以人為祭品的石器時代社會，既沒有發明輪子拉貨車，也沒有玻璃可以做望遠鏡，在人類歷史起步之初，不可能比現代真正科學家更了解科學。」
But the parade of crazy marched on anyway making wilder and wilder predictions for Earth, including:
但不論如何，這狂熱的風潮持續延燒，對地球的預測也越來越不著邊際，包括：
Geomagnetic Reversal (A process that unfolds on a geologic time scale, not a single day.)
A collision with mysterious Planet X (That no astronomers have found.)
A local star going supernova (Despite there have been no such candidates.)
An Alien Invasion (Which is ludicrous on the face of it...or is it?)
And a galactic synchronization beam, whatever the hell that is.
地磁反轉(一個在地質年表上才會呈現出的過程，不是一天就會發生的。)
和神祕的X星球相撞(根本沒有天文學家發現這個星球)
本星系群的一顆恆星變成超新星(只是沒有這樣的候選人)
外星人入侵(從外表看起來是挺滑稽的...是嗎？)
還有銀河同步光束，管它是啥。
A sane person at this point would wonder how Mayans were able to predict astro-physical anomalies thousands of years in advance and millions of miles away yet didn't foresee the Spanish coming across the Atlantic.
現在，神智清楚的人可能會想，為什麼馬雅人有辦法預測未來幾千年的天文物理異象，而且還是發生在離他們數百萬英里遠的地方，卻沒辦法預見西班牙人會橫越大西洋(前來侵略)呢？
And that's because the Mayans never predicted apocalypse. The only people to claim that Mayans knew about the end of the world were distinctly not Mayans.
那是因為馬雅人從沒預言過啟示錄。唯一那些聲稱馬雅人知道世界末日的人，很明顯的，都不是馬雅人。
註一：the New Agey people是指那些推崇「新時代運動」(the New Age Movement)的人。他們通常只吃有機食物、做瑜珈、喜歡冥想，相信世界末日會讓世界重新來過，得以重生。
